Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Why is anyone still using FACEBOOK?

Galen Sherwin of the ACLU writes:

 

Facebook HQ
In 1967, the newly formed National Organization for Women staged a weeklong protest of The New York Times and other newspapers. Their demonstration targeted the long-standing practice of printing classified listings in two separate columns: “Help wanted: Male” and “Help wanted: Female,” which of course resulted in the exclusion of women from high-paying jobs and industries. As a result of NOW’s advocacy campaign, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency charged with enforcing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting race and sex discrimination in employment, finally made clear — over the strong objection of newspapers — that limiting job postings to one sex was unlawful. Sex-segregated classified ads subsequently became a thing of the past.
Or so we thought.
Today, five decades later, sex-segregated job listings are roaring back to life. Enabled by social media platforms like Facebook, advertisers are increasingly using users’ personal data to direct their ads — including for jobs — to individual users based on characteristics such as sex, race, and age, thus excluding users outside of the selected groups from learning about these opportunities.
We can’t let this archaic form of discrimination continue to take hold. That’s why on Tuesday, the ACLU, along with the Communications Workers of America and the employment law firm Outten & Golden LLP, filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Facebook and 10 companies that targeted ads for jobs in male-dominated fields to younger male Facebook users only, excluding all women and non-binary individuals, as well as older male users. The case is brought on behalf of three job seekers and the Communications Workers of America on behalf of a proposed class of millions of job applicants. It alleges that these job advertising practices violate federal civil rights laws prohibiting sex and age discrimination in employment.
These laws explicitly prohibit publication of segregated ads, or ads that express a preference for sex or age. Yet that’s exactly what has happened. Facebook requires users to identify their sex in the binary categories of male or female in order to even open an account. While users can later change their sex designation and select from among a few dozen options to describe their gender identity, Facebook still requires users to choose gendered pronouns (male, female, or neutral), which it then offers to advertisers for purposes of gender-based ad targeting. Facebook delivers the ad accordingly, including a notice that the user is seeing the ad because of their sex.
The only difference between Facebook’s ad targeting practice and the sex-segregated classified ads of yore is that Facebook — unlike newspapers, which are distributed to the general public — can actually ensure that specific ads are only delivered to its male or female users, or to users of a specific age range, according to the advertisers’ selection.


How much more damage does FACEBOOK have to do?  Why are people still using it?  It mines your data -- your personal data -- and sells and markets it.  It makes money off of you and you get nothing in return.  Why is anyone still using FACEBOOK?

BBC reports:

A separate investigation by ProPublica discovered what it said were more examples showing a similar pattern.
Earlier this year the investigative journalism site released a tool which readers could use to collect data on the Facebook ads they had seen, and send that information directly to ProPublica for analysis. 
Using that method, the site said it discovered men were targeted specifically in dozens of cities around the US for driving jobs with Uber. This conclusion was based on 91 ads placed by Uber's recruitment arm, only one of which was targeted specifically at women, with three not targeting any particular gender. The rest were designed to be seen by men only. 


Again, why is anyone still using FACEBOOK?

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Tuesday, September 18, 2018.  The Iraq War continues, despite pretense otherwise.

"We want to end the war and we want to end it now!"  Barack Obama spent most of the first half of 2008 yelling that at rallies as he sought to secure the Democratic Party's nomination.  Remember those days?

He clobbered Hillary Clinton over the head for her 2002 vote for the Iraq War.  Remember that?  Kimberle Crenshaw and so many others rushed forward to pile on.  Fair enough . . . if they gave a damn about Iraq but, as their actions have demonstrated, they didn't.

And they didn't give a damn that Barack refused to follow his campaign promise.  And they didn't give a damn that he did a drawdown, not a withdrawal, at the end of 2011.  And they didn't give a damn when he sent a unit of special-ops back into Iraq in September of 2012.  And they didn't give a damn when Tim Arango got that reality into print in THE NEW YORK TIMES.  And they didn't give a damn that he kept sending more and more US troops into Iraq in the last two years of his presidency.  They just didn't give a damn.

"We want to end the war and we want to end it now!"

Don't forget, we're still in Iraq, which means the Iraqi military is also doing bad stuff
 
 


The US remains in Iraq.  So does, as RT AMERICA did a good job of pointing out yesterday, the United Kingdom.  And the two aren't the only foreign forces occupying Iraq.  For example,  Anna Whyte (TVNZ) reports:

The Government are extending New Zealand's military training deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as renewing three peacekeeping missions in Middle East and Africa.

The Prime Minister announced the extension today, with the Iraq deployment extended to June 2019 and reducing the number of military personnel from 143 to 121 from November this year.


Emma Hurley (NEWSHUB) reports:

Green co-leader James Shaw grilled the Minister of Defence about New Zealand's deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday afternoon, calling it a "seemingly never-ending military engagement".
It follows the Government's announcement on Monday it would extend the deployments until June 2019, despite Labour calling it "mission creep" in opposition.
Mr Shaw asked if the Minister agreed "that continued military involvement of outside forces has actually further destabilised the region and made it easier for terror groups to recruit and has led to an increase in violence rather than a decrease".


Marta Subat (INFOSURHOY) adds:

Most personnel are based at Taji Camp, but there are also three intelligence officers working out of Qatar.


Ms Ardern said the deployment will be reviewed again in early 2019, to assess New Zealand’s options to contribute to stability in Iraq beyond next June.


So New Zealand could keep troops in Iraq beyond June.  Apparently, no one ever leaves.  Also at Camp Taji?  Germany.  REUTERS notes:

German forces will be needed in Iraq for a long time to help rebuild the country’s military as it struggles to ensure that Islamic State militants do not regroup in underground cells, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday.
Germany, which has about 125 soldiers in Iraq, is committed to supporting Baghdad as it rebuilds now that the fight to reclaim territory formerly held by Islamic State (IS)militants is largely over, she said during a visit to German troops at the Taji military base about 30 kms north of Baghdad.

And along with the military multitutdes, there are the mercenaries, the contractors.  Zack Kopplin and Irvin McCullough (DAILY BEAST) report:

The U.S. government has paid Sallyport Global, a military contracting company, over $1 billion since January 2014 to provide security, life support, training and other basic operations at Balad Air Base in Iraq. But the results, according to 17 current and former Sallyport employees, have been chaotic, bizarre, in many cases sinister, and posed major risks to the personnel on the base at a time when the so-called Islamic State controlled swathes of territory nearby.
Sallyport employs roughly 1,850 people at Balad. Its company headquarters is in Virginia, but it also has a corporate presence in Bermuda.
What Sallyport runs in Iraq is basically a small army of private military contractors, known in the trade as PMCs, recruited from around the world. Employees are paid handsomely to survive insurgent attacks, blistering heat and crushing boredom for a few years while supporting American international military and policy objectives.


As Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil explained decades ago:

We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'cause girl, there's a better life for me and you



Instead of getting out, the US government continues to occupy Iraq and attempt to control it.


U.S likes to see Barham Salih as Iraq president. Salih has some rivals -- most compettive is Mala Bakhtyar. Salih has to officially agree to rejoin PUK Even if this happens, he has to convince KDP to support his bid for Iraq presidency. KDP sees Salih as more Iraqi than Kurdish
 
 
KDP values Kurdish nationalism and probaly would like to see someone as president that if he would not further Kurdish nationalism, he would not at least hurt it. Salih is seen as a libality for this. If Salih is nominated, KDP could have his own nominee, too. PUK has to decide.
 
 


Salih?

Why?

What the hell has that piece of trash ever accomplished?  Selling the Kurds out to ExxonMobil?

More to the point, the position of prime minister has traditionally been reserved for a Chicken Ass Coward who fled Iraq.  Now the post of president will also go to such a person?

First, in 1979, Chicken Ass Salih fled to England.  Then he fled to the US following the Gulf War. When did he finally return to Iraq?

After the US-led invasion of 2003.

This is a president?

This is a coward.  This is an embarrassment.  From 1979 until the fall of Baghdad in 2003, he lived outside the country, cowering in fear, begging other countries to invade Iraq.

And that behavior is to be rewarded?

Recipe: Chicken Ass Coward Salih Salad
1) Check to ensure that all of Salih's bones have been removed (this is just a safety step, the spine was removed years ago).
2) Add corporate backing from his corporate masters such as ExxonMobil.
3) Stir in US backing.
4) Add a dash of empire and a touch of chauvinism.
5) Serve immediately because with Salih, as with all cowards, there's a huge chance he'll flee quickly.


The US government repeatedly backs the weakest and most controllable Iraqis.  It's not interested in an independent Iraq.  That's why they backed the weak Hayder al-Abadi.  They installed him in 2014.  Then they backed his weak ass over and over.  The Iraqi people didn't back him.  They saw him as the failure that he is.

For example, Iraq is facing a huge water crisis.  The US press never wanted to tell you that, but it is reality.  And Hayder had four years to address it but did nothing.



Iraq is running out of water - 90% of its land is now desert
 
 



Even now, the US press tries to pretend that Hayder was something to admire.  Nabih Bulos (LOS ANGELES TIMES) maintains:


It was only a few months ago that Haider Abadi, Iraq’s avuncular prime minister, seemed to do no wrong.

He had been credited with defeating Islamic State, among other accomplishments, and was expected to easily net a second term in parliamentary elections in May. He had the backing of the U.S. and others in the West. He looked to be Iraq’s first genuinely post-sectarian leader.
In Arabic, Nabih means "intelligent."  Apparently, in THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, Nabih means "liar."  Hayder did nothing but wrong and only an apologist for imperialism would pretend otherwise.  Hayder came to office with Nouri al-Maliki bombing residential homes in Falluja -- a legally defined War Crime.  And Hayder insisted, in September (2014) that he was stopped these bombings because they were wrong.  It made for headlines in the western press.  But the reality, as opposed to the presstitution, was that the very next day, these bombings continued.

Nabih lies that he stopped the Kurds.  Stopped them from doing what?  Holding their non-binding measure?  They held it.  The Kurds want their freedom and independence.  And it will happen.  It will probably have to wait until the US finally leaves, but that it the future.  Hayder stomped his feet and threatened but he didn't stop the referendum.

He did not end the Islamic State.  Only US presstitutes ever believed that lie.  The US and Iran were part of the operation and the operation was not a success, it was a War Crime.  As Carl Boggs notes at INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE this week:


It is easy to forget that it was the Obama administration that planned and carried out the first phases of the Mosul operation (begun in October 2016) which produced hundreds of thousands of casualties (with at least 40,000 dead), left a city of two million in Dresden-like state of rubble, and drove nearly a million civilians into exile. The same fate, on smaller scale, was brought to other Sunni-majority cities in Iraq, including Ramadi, Tikrit, and Fallujah (already destroyed by U.S. forces in 2004). Whatever the official goal, and however many secondary collaborators were involved, these were monstrous war crimes by any reckoning.



The Iraq War continues, the death and destruction continues.  The politicians aren't really that interested -- certainly not interested enough to end it.  Women's March on the Pentagon next week is about ending the wars.


Happening soon!
 
 




October 20 and 21st.  Women's March On The Pentagon.



Interview of Womens March On The Pentagon founder Cindy Sheehan 💚 The Green Party US and others have endorsed the and HRGP gets a shout out from David Cobb WMOP: Oct 20-21st, Washington DC
 
 
This Sunday, September 16th, Join FURIE-Feminist Uprising to Resist Inequality and Exploitation to grow the Anti-War Movement in Chicago! This is a follow-up/planning meeting for the Womens March on the Pentagon on Oct. 21, 2018 in Washington DC.
 
 
Visit for up to date i.
 
 
Only ten days left to order your March on the Pentagon shirt in time for the march!! Hurry!
 
 
The Women's March on the Pentagon encourages all those opposed to endless war to write , during our "Why I Oppose War" campaign. The Pentagon's lust for endless war takes a heavy toll on the daily lives and the...
 
 
War is a woman's issue. War is an environmental issue. War is a community issue. Women for Justice Midwest
 
 
Good question! We ask it a dozen times an hour. When did working for an end to armed hostilities become a wrong goal? Like wishing for a sunny day is a crime, right?
 
 
Not to be confused with WM, this is being led by Cindy Sheehan. Even if you can't go, you can write a letter and make your voice be heard.
 
 
  1. The Women's March on the Pentagon encourages all those opposed to endless war to write It is a misconception that we can't do anything about this terrible reality.
 
 
October 20-21: Women's March on the Pentagon
 
 
If you missed yesterday's community conference call, don't worry! You can listen to the recording here -->
 
 





The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley and BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- updated: